University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

The Media Story
Timeline in recession
Dominant Storyline
Recession = The death of CSR
110
The ‘type’ of CSR matters; emphasis on which type
changes
CSR is a survivor
Figure 1: Timeline of Media Opinion
The development of the media storyline has also demonstrated a subtle change in the
language used, with more emphasis on terms such as sustainability and sustainable
business practices. This interchangeable use of CSR terminology is in line with
discussion of the language of CSR earlier in this paper. Perhaps this makes intuitive
sense as one would expect businesses to communicate to their stakeholders and
shareholders that they will survive the recession as they are more ‘sustainable’ than
their rivals. This subtle change in language, is also reflected in the themes emerging
from the interviews.
Themes
A number of themes have emerged from the preliminary data review undertaken in
this research. These themes relate to both the language and action of CSR and
provide an interesting spring board for further work in this area, as the impacts of the
recession become more evident.
One notable impact of the recession, is that some of the main criticisms and
challenges which feature in the broader CSR debate are becoming either more
evident in an operational sense and/or are re-igniting debates. One such issue relates
to the problem of the short-term, market driven view often taken by business as a